New Paltz resident Switzer had close view of disaster

In a sad way, Kathrine Switzer always suspected foul play would mar the Boston Marathon, the touchstone event that made her career.

KEN McMILLAN

In a sad way, Kathrine Switzer always suspected foul play would mar the Boston Marathon, the touchstone event that made her career.

Two explosive devices detonated alongside the final stretch on Monday, killing three people and wounding more than 170.

"For many, many years I was afraid this would happen," Switzer, 66, said Tuesday morning from her Copley Square hotel room overlooking the finish line, "being that the marathon is just too big, too colorful and too wonderful for someone not to abuse in this way. It was the perfect, diabolical photo op."

Switzer rose to fame in 1967 when she was the first registered woman to complete the Boston Marathon. The Boston Athletic Association did not allow female runners, but Switzer registered under the name K.V. Switzer. In a celebrated photo, a race official tried to physically remove her from the race, but Switzer's boyfriend shoved him out of the way.

Her status led to her first prominent sports assignment at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Arab terrorists kidnapped Israeli athletes, 11 of whom subsequently died.

Switzer, who now lives in New Paltz with her writer-husband Roger Robinson, had completed a five-hour marathon broadcast on local television and walked back to her hotel to drop things off. Switzer was on the floor of her room, stretching her back, when the first explosion rattled the windows. She bounded up to take a look, thinking a gas line had blown up.

"I didn't see any blood, but there was plenty of mayhem," she said. "As I looked out the window, everybody was running around when the (second) bomb went off, and then there were ambulances and bomb cars and everything else. Oh my God, it's our worst nightmare come true."

Switzer was worried about her broadcast colleague, who was still up on the rickety scaffolding overlooking the finish line. "I turned on the television to see if my station was still covering," she said. "There she was, on the bridge, still OK. She was doing very rattled commentary with her cell phone."

The Boston Marathon is traditionally held on Patriots Day, a state holiday in Massachusetts that celebrates the American Revolution movement with festivals and sporting events, including the marathon and a Boston Red Sox baseball matinee.

"This is terrible,'' Switzer said. "I mean, this is murder on what we would call a sacred stage. The Boston Marathon is the holy grail of running and to have this happen is just unthinkable."

Switzer said all future marathon organizers will have to take added safety precautions. "It is going to be incredibly hard to police 26.2 miles," she said, "and it will be very hard to offer 30,000 or 40,000 people security."

One thing Switzer is sure of, though, is the running community will come together, much like they did at the 2001 New York Marathon, held after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"This is the ultimate tragedy," she said, "but it also makes us very resilient. Runners are very hard core about our freedom and our sense of empowerment and going from one point to another unimpeded. This is going to make us incredibly resolute."